Still livin'

Well guys, I survived my first semester at the UofC! I wrote a my last exam today, which wasn't a final, but rather a midterm for organic chem. You see, I am taking organic chem 2 through a distance education university, so I am only slightly more than half way through the course (4 more chapters to go!). So I wrote the midterm today.

I was completely not ready for it, but I think it went okay. I definitely got 0/3 on the naming compounds section, but the rest of it was decent...so I know I didn't fail at least...The last question really threw me though, no where in the 6 units being tested did we learn about this question. I made stuff up, and the chemistry worked...I think...

I also got my bike fixed today, which meant walking around downtown with my bike in -29 degree Celsius weather...yup, you read that right. Welcome to Alberta, it better be warmer when I go home tomorrow, BC better not disappoint!

See y'all in 2013! My next post will be written from training camp in Tuscan Arizona.

Great ideas that aren't mine

I constantly have these ideas about how nerves grow or about how to best manipulate them to grow. My latest one involves exercise. There has to be a reason why my nerves won't stop growing, and there is one thing that I do a lot of that most people with nerve damage do not: exercise. Then last week I read an article about how getting rats with nerve damage to exercise significantly reduced their pain levels. The researchers thought that it was likely do to a reduction in inflammatory mediators as a result of exercise. And I was all like, OMG! Maybe I am on to something, maybe the reduction in inflammatory mediators not only reduces pain but improves axon out growth!!

So then this week, I decided to pub med "exercise and nerve regeneration." As it turns out, I am not the first person to think of this, and there are a lot of journal articles published surrounding this idea. Granted, I did think of this entirely on my own, which I guess is a good start, but the world of neuroscientists has already beat me to it.

I would love to be able to in someway come up a novel idea on my own, to be the first one to think of something, to be the one that figures out how to make nerves grow. If I can do that, then maybe all this pain hasn't been for nothing. I don't believe everything happens for a reason, because there is no reason a two year old needs to get cancer or that I need to have chronic pain. I do believe that you can take any situation, even awful ones, and make something good out of it.

I'll keep thinking, and maybe someday I will figure it out.

Will they see it?

I feel like I am constantly working my tush off to try an impress people I don't know and likely will never meet. I study as hard as I can for everything, 10% tests get as much attention as a 30% test would because everything counts, there is no room for error. I don't skip a training session for any reason, not for pain and not for school because maybe, just maybe tomorrow will be the day that will mean the difference between 3rd and 4th. I try to balance my family, friends, volunteering and goals with my own sanity, but the scales always seemed to be slanted this way or that.

Is this what the rest of my life will be like? Yes I realize that I am trying to get into medical school in the very near yet distant future, but will it always be like this? Once, or if, I am in medical school I know I will be doing everything possible to match into the residency spot that I want, and then I will be trying to match into the fellowship that I want, and the secure a job, and then publish amazing papers....it doesn't end!!!

Right now, my concern is that my medical school applications won't show how hard I have been working. My first year of university shows a GPA that is less than stellar, but an admission committee won't see that I spent all day everyday in hospitals, clinics, doctor appointments, dressing changes, pharmacy line ups, on buses and trains trying to get to far off specialists to prevent my right leg from being amputated. I didn't go to class because I couldn't, so I stayed up every night until the wee hours of the morning copying out notes from my friends and studying for quizzes, midterms, and exams. I worked harder than I have ever worked before, but my GPA doesn't reflect that, and I wasn't involved in the community because I was completely absorbed with trying to save my leg without sacrificing my life. Will the admission committee see that? My guess is not, and if I talk it about, it will seem like I am making up excuses for my grades or trying to seek pity. 

I have for the past 2 tests in  human physiology gotten 96%, which you might be thinking is impressive, and normally I would also think that, however, my school only puts letter grades on your transcript. In the Faculty of Medicine, and A is 90-96 and an A+ is 97-100. When I apply to UBC school of medicine next year, they will see my A, and translate it to 87%. Which is almost 10% lower than my actual grade, so I might as well study less, put less effort in and get 90%. Or if I study that much harder (which when you have chronic pain, there is a distinct line which you cannot cross because your mind doesn't function after a while) and get 97%, and achieve that A+ (which UBC translates to a 95). The whole grading system makes me angry, I work as hard as I possibly can, and nobody will see that.

Is this the life I am choosing? Work yourself until you bleed and nobody even notices that you are bleeding? I know you will say that they will notice, but I disagree, nobody will see how much I achieved in the face of the challenges I have overcome or am still struggling with. They will see my grades, ones that don't even reflect my actual grades, they will see I had no extra-curricular activities for two years and they will judge me against other students who haven't gone through what I have.

I am choosing a life that is against me in every way.

The First Cut

Today I preformed my first surgery, I made my first cut through skin, isolated my first structure and sutured my first wound. It was amazing, and I thought my hands would begin to shake, or that I would falter or feel faint, but I didn't. Probably because this surgery was on a rat, but on Monday when I watched the demo of the surgery, I felt pretty sick. But there is definitely a big difference between watching somebody cut the skin and actually putting the scalpel blade through the skin your self. Even though his heart was beating and he was breathing (and anesthetized), it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be when I made that first cut. 

I completed my animal surgery certificate course today, I assisted my partner with a surgery on Monday, we did post-op together on Tuesday and today was my time to be in the spot light. All I had to do was isolate the jugular vein, which really wasn't that difficult. And those veins are surprisingly stretchy and resilient. The hard part was the suturing, doing the inner layer of tissue was just fine as it was a discontinuous stitch, but doing a continuous buried stitch on the outer layer of skin was really tricky. I kinda suck at it...but it was my first attempt at ever stitching anything ever!!! I'm pretty stoked on life right now though, mostly because I didn't know if  could ever handle doing surgery. I like it, I'm not good at it right now, but I like it.

After my rat was euthanized (I'm not totally okay with shoving a needle full of anesthetic into a rat's heart yet...) I got to isolate the sciatic nerve. Honestly, it was the first nerve that I have ever really seen. Maybe on day I will get to repair one.

I'm pumped to keep studying, get on with my research project (mice officially ordered) and become a doctor! Surgery might still be in my cards, but I need to practice suturing, so, I bought this:

My first suture kit

 The only problem is that I only have 2 packs of sutures, one for fascia and one for skin. So if you know anywhere I can buy sutures, let me know!!

Never the answer?

I always here people say to or about a friend, a loved one or somebody that they don't even know that "Suicide is never the answer." (Before you get your spandex shorts in a knot, this post isn't going to be about me contemplating suicide...in fact it is not about me at all.) When people say things like this I find that it makes me almost irate, not because I think suicide is a good option, but because people who say that is not an answer to your problem clearly have no idea what that person is going through.

Today's post is about how a boy, living in my city, thought it was the only option. This boy's story can be read here and his name is Dom. Dom had chronic pain that started when he was 14, and it progressed to the point where it was so badly controlled, that by the time he was 18 he decided that his only option to end the pain was suicide. And now I bet you are thinking that: "No, there must have been a better option, there must have been treatments....there must have been something other than suicide that would ease his pain!" Well, my friends, as somebody who has chronic pain, you are eventually told that there is nothing more that can be done to help you, other than physical and emotional therapy. See, Dom was a teenager, and chronic pain is something that people, let alone other teenagers, can rarely comprehend. They don't understand why you can't just get out of bed and go to that party on Friday night or why you can't go shopping after school. Unless you have chronic pain, you cannot understand what it is like (even if you are a doctor, or a medical student or a personally know somebody with the disease).

Dom made the decision to end the pain because our medical and social system failed him. The only thing that kept me out of the depths of isolation and depression when it all first started for me was that I had teachers who had chronic pain, the fact I was at a boarding school where I was constantly surrounded by people making isolation impossible, I had a doctor who tried absolutely everything to help me and I had my bike. I was lucky to be where I was at the time...luck, pure luck, and without it, I don't know where I would be. Dom was completely imprisoned by pain, without doctors to fight for him or friends to pull him out of the depths of blinding pain. If you where him, would you be okay with having your mom spoon feed you for the rest of your life? Would you be okay with asking you sister to help you put on your socks at 18 years old? I wouldn't.

So don't judge somebody when they decide that taking their own life is the only solution, because for them it just might be. For me, I had decided to find my own solution, to spend my life in the lab trying to fix this problem. I still have hope, Dom didn't. I can tell you that even if you believe people who commit suicide go to hell (which I absolutely don't), hell might just be better than having every inch of your body be on fire all the time.

Just think about it for a moment, what would you honestly do in Dom's situation?

Laughter

The best thing about volunteering at a Children's Hospital is laughter. Its my job, to make the kids, nurses, parents and doctors laugh. When you are volunteering in a respite/palliative setting and with children, the best thing that  I can do for them is to make them laugh. Today I played Uno Jenga with a patient, a nurse, a nursing aid and a doctor. We were having so much fun that we even drew a couple of parents and other patients out of their rooms to see what was going on. I left my shift today and walked out of the door with everybody laughing and smiling. I can only hope that when I am a doctor, I will be able to do the same, to go home everyday knowing that the last person I talked to was either laughing or smiling when I walk out the door. 

Medical Monday 1

Hey everybody! So this my first Medical Monday, and it is also my first Monday not being a teenager! Yup, I turned 20 yesterday, so I am officially old. I know a lot of people reading this are probably older than me, but I just joined the club.

Today's Medical Monday is going to be about hands. We can do a lot with our hands, we can make things, we can use them as a musical instrument and among other things, we can use them to comfort somebody. I will never forget the moment when my GP put his hand on my back to help me sit up after an exam a few years ago when I was dealing with a pretty severe illness. It was a simple gesture, but that moment he went from being a doctor to being a friend, from being the person with the prescription pad to being a comforting presence. Its a pretty incredible thing that we can do with our hands.

On Friday, I went to my volunteer shift at the Children's Hospital. For about an hour, I just held this four year old boy (he was about the size of a two year old, and developmentally a year). We read stories, but mostly we just cuddled, and he would smile and giggle. There was an other girl, B, and she has her good days and her bad days. Friday was a bad day and on bad days, B doesn't stop yelling, screaming and crying (she is a non-verbal communicator). The morning was actually going pretty good until music therapy...then it all went down hill. So I took her to the sun-room, where she continued to scream until I started to gently rub her back, and then she stopped. As soon as I removed my had, she would start crying again, so I kept rubbing her back until she fell asleep, and then once she was asleep I wheeled her back to her room as quiet as humanly possible.

People seem to have this notion that medicine is about learning about diseases and treatments, and that patients are their disease. I am even guilty of this thinking and I'm not even in medical school yet, but there is something more to medicine than just that. People say that their doctor is amazing because they not only make correct diagnosis but they actually listen, and don't get me wrong, that definitely adds up to some respect points in my book. I think though, that we easily forget that sometimes all people really need from medicine is a comforting hand.

I encourage you, if you are a doctor, want to be a doctor or have anything remotely do with the lives of people who are ill, terminal or are just having a crappy day to extend your hand to them and bring them a sense of comfort that drugs and other treatments cannot. That is real medicine.